There seems to be an increased focus these days on mother nature as the culture pushes environmentalism and also as new age beliefs take root in popular thinking. This goes back to paganism, such as ancient Greek and Roman worship of false gods that supposedly ruled over the natural world, and it can certainly be idolatrous today as well even if people don’t understand.
But there is plenty of opportunity to capitalize on the subject for the sake of God’s kingdom and sharing faith in Christ. If someone is thinking about nature and how it’s beautiful, powerful, and somewhat beyond their control, they are in a good place to turn their thinking to God. That’s why Romans 1:20-21 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God…”
The natural world is meant to point to God, but our fellowship with God has been broken because we stopped looking to him and began to look to what He has made for meaning, as it says a few verses later:, that mankind “exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).
We can look to Paul and how he addressed pagans on this issue, speaking to intellectual people who tried to believe in just about everything and even had an altar to “an unknown God.” Paul says, “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth” (Acts 17:24-26).
We can point people back to the one who made them, helping them understand He wants to know them and that He loved them so much He was willing to come down to earth to live the perfect life we can’t live and die the death we deserve to die for dishonoring Him and living as though He wasn’t our source of life. Jesus has made a way to the God who made us, and we can know Him and enjoy Him in all things—even nature. Everything can become meaningful.
